Spark
 Special Issue on completion of one year of Spark
Issue no. 12 | July | 2018
EDITORIAL
We are happy to present you this special issue of Spark
that has completed its journey of a year. The Spark team
is thankful to all the readers whose encouragement,
criticism, contributions have made us feel that in coming
days, we need to progress more to stand by the
emancipatory struggles of students, peasants, workers,
intellectuals who are fighting for true freedom and
justice. We have intentionally selected 15th August to
publish this issue because today, when the public
“nation-loving” leaders will be celebrating Independence
Day, four million people of the country risk losing their
citizenship. Don’t they realize that people are being
incarcerated on dubious grounds by the Foreigner’s
Tribunals? Four million people are likely to be poor,
working class, bengali Muslims or Namasudra (a dalit
sub-catse), being uneducated, less-privileged are most
vulnerable in this bureaucratic citizenry drill and the
“independent” state is now ready to snatch the right to
food, right to work, right to education, right to health and
even right to life.
Post 15th August, 1947, the Indian rulers worked with
the inherited colonial state apparatus, merely
embellishing it with a constitutional glory to cheat
people. But now, in 72 years, they themselves have
ruptured this constitutional tool and the present ruling
party wish to replace the Indian Constitution with
Manusmriti, and is setting all new records in
implementing policies related to liberalization-
privatization-globalization. Neoliberal onslaughts on
every sector are gaining extra momentum in the backdrop
of this Market-Manu nexus. The policies clearly show
that “the ideology of the Hindutva and the economics of
liberalisation are not only reconcilable but
complementary.”
One of the most adverse manifestations of neoliberalism
is in the field of education. According to UGC’s annual
report, the Indian education market is expected to reach a
worth of US $144 billion by 2020 from US $97.8 billion
in 2016. The total amount of FDI inflow into the
education sector from April 2000 to March 2017 stood at
US $1.42 billion, according to the data released by the
Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. The
union budget of 2018 witnessed a massive fund crunch in
education sector. For example, the allocation in this
sector has gone down from 0.49% to 0.45% of Gross
SPARK- Special Issue on completion of one year of Spark, Issue no. 12, July 2018
Contribution: Rs 5.
Domestic Product (GDP). This manner of crunch will
further dissociate students of under-privileged
backgrounds (mainly, Dalit, Adivasis and Muslims) from
resources of education. From Macaulay’s days to the
present government, all deny education as a fundamental
right. While the Indian state finds billion to lavish on its
military, it continues to be among the countries that
figure at the bottom with regard to public expenditure on
education. India is the lowest spender of education
among the BRICS countries.
Now, raising questions on the fundamental rights of
education, health, work, dignity, life will surely make
one a “Deshdrohi” in today’s India as in the case of
Sudha Bharadwaj or Stan Swamy. Over the last two
decades, Stan has identified himself with the adivasi
people of India and their struggle for a life of self-dignity
and respect. He has clearly expressed his dissent over
several policies and law enacted by the government in the
light of Indian constitution. But the Jharkhand
government has filed a case of sedition against him for
supporting the adivasi Pathalgadi movement.
History proves: “Wherever there is oppression, there is
resistance”. When the fascist government is applying
stringent sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention)
Act on activists to curb all form of dissents, students
along with intellectuals and working people marched
down the Parliament Street in Delhi against the on-going
state repression on masses. When the adivasis have been
exploited and oppressed beyond tolerance, the rich
minerals which are excavated in their land have enriched
the outside industrialists and impoverished the adivasis to
the extent that people have died of starvation, then “In
the hinterland of Jharkhand, among the successors of
heroic martyrs like Sidhu, Kanu, Chand, Bhairav, Phulo,
Jhano and Birsa Munda, the new battle lines of modern
India are getting drawn. Due to their indomitable
character and their legacy of never surrendering, the
tribal people remained unconquered during the peak of
the British colonial rule.” And they still carry their legacy
to fight oppression and establish a just system.
At the end, the team of Spark once again invites
merciless criticism and independent thinking which the
great revolutionary Bhagat Singh believed to be the
necessary traits of revolutionary thinking and hopes to
perform its role in fighting the neo-liberal fascists.
1
 NRC: TRAGEDY UNFOLDING
The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a list of
Indian citizens of Assam, the Complete Draft of which
was published on 30th July, 2018. Broadly, as per the
Assam Accord, any Non-Indian individual or his/her
descendant who has entered Assam after midnight, 24th
March, 1971 is not supposed to be in the list. Out of 3.3
crore applicants, 2.9 crore were found to be eligible for
the list. With funding from the Government of India and
implementation by Government of Assam, the modalities
of the process have been designed jointly by both as per
orders from the Supreme Court of India. The 40 lakh
vulnerable people, whose name is not present in the list,
stand the chance of being stateless, devoid of voting
rights and uncovered under any social security. This
would not only put these people under severe distress but
also expose them to intense exploitation under the ruling
classes.
In the mid 19th century, large scale demographic change
was witnessed in Assam when the British started building
tea gardens in Assam. Lakhs of workers from Jharkhand
region was brought into this region to work for a pittance
under horrendous living conditions. However, the British
found it difficult to provide supply for food grains for
this huge population as the Assamese peasantry were not
aware of the methodology of rice cultivation in inundated
areas (Large parts of Assam are flooded every year by
the Brahmaputra; houses, agricultural field, etc. get
washed away regularly). Peasants in adjoining districts of
East Bengal knew this technology. To attract the peasants
in Mymensingh and around, drum beating informers of
the British campaigned in the villages, promising any
peasant who would shift to Assan to be given land,
bullocks and money. Encouraged by this large number of
Bengali peasants form East Bengal, mostly Muslims,
settled in Assam; subsequently, their knowledge and hard
work turned those fallow lands into cultivable lands. The
Muslim population percentage in the Brahmaputra Valley
rose from 5.9% in 1874 to 23% in 1941 according to
British records.
The conflict between indigenous Assamese population
and the people who have migrated at different times in
history is not new. Its essence can be captured very aptly
in the famous slogans that used to ring the lanes during
the Assam Agitation to drive out the ‘bohiragato’,
(meaning outsiders) – Ali, coolie, Bongali/ Naak sepeta
Nepali (Ali for Muslims, coolie for Bihari tea plantation
laborers, Bongali for Bengalis, naak sepeta Nepalis for
blunt nosed Nepali dairy farmers). However, with time,
the main enemy was identified as the Bengali speaking
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Muslims, most of who had been brought to Assam to
enhance the imperialist plunder as described previously.
The classic example is of the Nellie massacre in Nagaon,
Assam in 1983 when 2191 Bengali Muslims (unofficial
estimates are above 10,000), most of who were
descendants of settlers in British India, were massacred
by a mob of indigenous Assamese people involved in the
sub-national movement. This otherness of Bengali
Muslims was an easy target for the ruling classes to be in
power in Assam for all these years post 1947. Many of
these people, who are descendants of the peasants who
had migrated from one province to another in British
India experience floods on a regular basis due to the
geographic regions where they had settled for agriculture.
How are they expected to maintain their documents in
place after years of facing such conditions?
The eagerness of the BJP in preparing the NRC must be
viewed in conjunction with their aggressiveness on the
Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 and Centre’s
sanction of Rs 46 crore for the dedicated detention centre
for ‘foreigners’ in Goalpara, Assam. The mentioned bill
snatches away the right of only Muslim immigrants to
make India their home, while it welcomes immigrants
from other prominent religions in India from
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In effect this
would enable the state to delegitimize only Muslims who
fail to produce the necessary documents. On the other
hand, the detention centre being built in Goalpara, in
addition to the existing 6 detention centers in Assam for
‘foreigners’, forces one to make comparisons with
detention centers that were constructed all over areas
under Nazi control to segregate Jews and subject them
under intense torture.
There have been public suggestions from elected
representatives from BJP to shoot ‘illegal Bangladeshis’,
indicating the public message it wants to send. The
government has so far not announced publicly as to what
it would do with the people whose name would not be
found in the NRC. With Bangladesh refusing to allow
any of the alleged Bangladeshis into their territory, the
only purpose that this mass frenzy generated over the
NRC issue is going to serve the BJP is polarization. If it
can exploit the bogey of the ‘other’, its job for 2019 is
done; the road to a Hindu Rashtra is smoother. When one
combines to this the cheap labor that would be available
to the ruling classes as a result of total withdrawal of any
social and political rights, it would be a recipe that every
exploiter would love.
2
 WHEN MANU MET MARKET!
Vedas were considered as the fountain of knowledge by
the Brahmins in ancient India, and by imposing an
abominable social hierarchy the ruling priestly class
deliberately deprived the large working class mass from
their fundamental right of knowledge. Manusmriti bears
ample examples of this. According to Manusmriti, if
Shudras utter or even if by mistake listen to Vedic chants,
then their ears should be filled with molted led and their
tongues should be cut off, respectively, to punish them.
The situation is not much different in twenty-first century
India. Especially, the present ruling class, who even
expresses its wish to replace the Indian Constitution with
Manusmriti, is setting all new records in implementing
policies of their corporate masters.
The union budget of 2018 witnessed a massive fund
crunch in education sector. For example, the allocation in
this sector has gone down from 0.49% to 0.45% of Gross
Domestic Product (GDP). Within it, the allocation to
higher education has decreased from 0.25% to 0.19% of
GDP. University Grant Commission (UGC) has faced Rs.
200 crore cut down in budget in comparison to the
revised estimate of previous year. For the year 2015-16,
UGC allocated a total of Rs. 648.3 crores for 329 state
universities, i.e., on average only 2 crores per institute.
Even the Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) and the
National Institute of Technologies (NITs) have seen cut
down of funds amounting Rs. 1918 crore and Rs. 465
crore, respectively. The amount is Rs. 816 crore for other
central universities. It is evident from these figures that
the government is withdrawing public support from the
education sector. However, this definitely does not
comply with the present government’s slogan of ‘Make
in India’. Then what is the motive of the government?
The motive of the government becomes clear when it
declares a non-existent Jio Institute as one of the
Institute-of-Eminence (IoE). This IoE is a new scheme
launched recently by the present Modi-led government in
which 10 government and 10 private institutions will be
selected and will be given Rs. 1000 crore each. So, it is
not that the central government does not have enough
money to fund the higher educational institutions. Rather
the real motive is to liberate all kinds of regulations that
are acting as barriers against privatizing the higher
education sector. For example, the 20 institutes under IoE
scheme will be granted complete autonomy. They will be
free to admit foreign students and charge fees from them,
without any kind of restrictions from the government.
Following the recommendations of General Agreement
on Trade in Services (GATS), the government is trying to
generate more income by admitting foreign students.
Currently a foreign student is paying three times higher
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tuition fee than a student belonging to this country, and
the present ruling class is shamelessly encouraging such
commodification of education with its new schemes.
IoEs are also free to recruit foreign faculty, exempted
from following the UGC mandated curriculum structure,
free to offer online courses. For the time being, some
maximum limits are set while availing these freedoms,
which are likely to be deregulated again in the future
following the present trend. We all know that the labor
welfare policies become invalid in Special Economic
Zones (SEZs). Likewise, government-fixed fees,
reservation, scholarship, and other justice-based policies
will become invalid in these new SEZs for higher
education, from where private monopolists will generate
their revenue.
The ruling class that can happily spend Rs. 20000 crores
of public to privatize top public-funded institutes in the
name of providing ‘world-class education’, is now saying
to increase tuition, examination, hostel and other fees to
make up the fund crunch in higher educational
institutions. Further, government has already created
Higher Education Funding Agency (HEFA) and started
Revitalizing Infrastructure and Systems in Education
(RISE) initiative to encourage the institutes to take loans.
The government has also promised to bear the interests.
This is the extent to which shameless siphoning of public
money to private corporates is taking place. In addition to
this, encouraging schemes like Global Initiative of
Academic Networks (GIAN) courses, Massive Open
Online Courses (MOOCs), systems like Graded
Autonomy for Universities and Colleges, Outcome Based
Education (OBE), setting up accreditation boards such as
National Assessment and Accreditation Council
(NAAC), National Board of Accreditation (NBA),
decisions like dismantling UGC – all are being done
according to the dictates of GATS, in order to handover
the fertile educational sector of India to finance capital
depending on their market value. Due to these policies
higher education in India has already become
unaffordable for the working class, for the marginalized
sections.
All these are being done consciously by the present
ruling class, who are the ideological children of Manu.
However, Manu’s ideas were challenged in the past, and
even at present, students from various private and
government institutions in India are protesting against the
pernicious aims of this Market-Manu nexus and the
onslaughts they are facing due to such nexus. Thus, it is
our foremost duty to take direct part in all such struggles,
or at least to stand in solidarity with the struggling
students and their just demands.
3
 AYURVEDA – A BRAHMINIC INTERRUPTION TO A SCIENTIFIC
BEGINNING
The journey of ancient Indian medical science,
throughout the past three millenniums, is an interesting
one. Socio-political scenarios at different times, starting
from ancient clan society to the present idea of nation-
state, have influenced this journey. Today, what we call
Ayurveda, which is nothing but a pseudo-scientific
Brahminised version of an age-old idea, which once
echoed the modern understanding of natural science.
Along with the scientific criticism of Ayurveda and its
lack of pharmacovigilence, we must admit its
contributions in transforming the ‘magico-religious
therapeutics’ to ‘rational therapeutics’ or in the
terminology of ancient physicians – daiva-vyapasraya-
bhesaja to yukti-vyapasraya-bhesaja.
Ignoring the later Brahminic influence, it can be said that
the fundamental understanding of Ayurveda consists of
two main ideas – firstly, the methodology of science or
the materialistic world-view, along with the relation
between man and nature, and secondly, the concept of
causality, which means the use of experience and reason.
Reflections of these ideas in the root sources of
Ayurveda, i.e., in Caraka-Samhita and Susruta-Samhita,
are briefly explained below.
1) Materialistic outlook: Glorification of soul and other
methaphysical doctrines can be found throughout the
Upanisads, which developed strong contempt for the
body. However, both Caraka and Susruta-Samhita
challenged such doctrines, and realized that everything in
a human body is made of only natural matters (bhuta),
which the contemporary physicians considered as in five
forms (panca-bhuta) such as akasa (antariksa), air
(vayaviya), fire (agneya), water (apya), and earth
(parthiva). They believed that the characteristics of a
particular human body depend on the pre-dominance of
one matter-form. Caraka-Samhita explicitly says -
“whatever concretely exists in the world, exists also in
man” and vice versa. Susruta-Samhita extends this
understanding by saying that “five forms of matter exist
in everything in the world, because of their mutual
interrelation, because of their mutual interdependence,
and because of their mutual interpenetration.” Such an
understanding of man and nature was surely a great leap
towards scientific thinking.
2) Importance on direct observation: A tendency of
discarding scripture-based knowledge and insisting on
the importance of direct observation of natural
phenomena, followed by a rational understanding of the
empirical data were witnessed in both Caraka-Samhita
and Susruta-Samhita. Caraka-Samhita says, “of all types
of evidences, the most dependable ones are those that are
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directly observed by the eyes”. Even Susruta-Samhita, in
defence of empirical knowledge, takes a step further and
warns the physicians against the empty fascination of
pure reason. It says - “even a thousand logical grounds
will never make the Ambastha group of drugs (which)
have a purgative function.” This type of emphasis on
empirical knowledge definitely formed the basis of
modern medical science.
The proponents of modern-day Ayurveda will not be
happy if we talk about some ancient ideas, which are not
compatible with the mainstream Brahminised
understanding that has made Ayurveda more or less
synonymous to herbal plants. However, in reality, the
Caraka-Samhita alone discussed 165 varieties of animals
and the use of different animal products for medical
purposes. Adding to the discomfort of the Brahminised
propaganda, it says even cow’s flesh, fat, and horn are as
useful as cow’s milk, urine, and dung. Ample evidences
are there in these texts that the doctors are highly
impressed by the protein value of cow’s flesh, and they
specially recommend this to the persons who badly need
to add flesh to their bodies. However, since cow has
become a political tool, the ruling class, irrespective of
their ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ Hindutva background, consistently
sidelined these aspects of Ayurveda, which are not
compatible with the politically-motivated Brahminised
narrative. Due to this type of Brahminic influence
throughout the millenniums, the source books of Indian
medicine reach us in a strange form, where we find both
science and its opposite. Experts on this subject realized
these as different religious ideas and beliefs that are
superimposed on the medical science and these are pre-
dominantly Vedic in nature. In many passages of Caraka
and Susruta-Samhita, we find superstitions, which do not
go with the materialistic attitude of these ancient texts.
Rather, the scientific temperaments of these texts are
very similar to the views of the outspoken materialists of
ancient India – the Lokayats or Carvakas, who are
heavily censored as nonconformists by the law-givers
and others.
Undoubtedly, the materialistic understanding of nature,
man, and medicine became a threat to the priestly class,
who used to uphold the law of karma in order to promote
the belief that everything related to human being depends
on the actions performed by him/her in his/her past life.
Therefore, in ancient India, this momentous step towards
science was full of political risks and Brahminic
interruptions and may be that is why the twin-gods –
Aswins, who are highly praised for their medical and
surgical skills in Rigveda, are degraded in later literatures
because of their medical past.
4
THE VICIOUS ATTACK ON SUDHA BHARADWAJ, THE LAWYER OF
THE PEOPLE
Sudha Bharadwaj, a lawyer at the Chhattisgarh High
Court, who generally keeps herself away from the media-
glare and works silently for the civil rights, is now on the
news; thanks to the news channel Republic TV which, on
July 4 2018, told its viewers that it had uncovered a letter
showing a “direct link between urban Naxals and
Kashmiri separatists”. The TV channel alleged that the
letter had been written by “Comrade Advocate Sudha
Bharadwaj” to a Maoist – one “Comrade Prakash”–
stating that a “Kashmir like situation” has to be created.
However, Sudha refuted the statement and accused the
anchor and MD Arnab Goswami for those “ridiculous,
scurrilous, false and completely unsubstantiated
allegations”. She has been also accused of having
received money from Maoists. All these “malicious,
motivated and fabricated attack” happened as Sudha, the
Vice-President of the Indian Association of People’s
Lawyers (IAPL), recently addressed a press conference
in Delhi to condemn the arrest of Advocate and National
Secretary of IAPL Surendra Gadling and four other
human rights activists. She said that IAPL had strongly
taken up the issue of other lawyers such as
Chandrashekhar of Bhim Army and Vachinathan who
were arrested after the Sterlite firing. IAPL had also
organised a fact finding into the difficulties faced by the
lawyers in Kashmir recently. It is clear that the state is
targeting such lawyers and other activists to deny
equitable access to the legal system and to silence those
who stand for the democratic and constitutional rights of
citizens.
Sudha was born an American citizen, but returned to
India at the age of 11 and gave up her US citizenship at
the age of 18. Her mother, the economist Krishna
Bharadwaj, founded JNU's Centre for Economic Studies
and Planning. Sudha joined IIT Kanpur to study
mathematics and completed the five-year integrated
course in 1984. In IIT, she encountered an academic
world riddled with sexism and elitism. However, the
experience was not entirely negative as she cut her teeth
in grassroots activism during these years. She used to
teach children in the nearby Kalyanpur village and began
to work with the campus mess workers, addressing their
problems. She also became an active member of a
cultural group. In 1982, following the arrest of Shankar
Guha Niyogi, the founder of Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha
(CMM), she went around the JNU campus, mobilising
signatures. While being associated with CMM, she was
exposed to the horrific working conditions of laborers in
Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar and fought
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passionately against corrupt bureaucrats to ensure proper
wages were paid to the workers in the mines and plants
located in Bhilai. Niyogi was assassinated in 1991 and
the following year, police fired on workers in Bhillai,
killing at least 15. While she was assisting the lawyers
and keenly following the proceedings of the case, the
government prosecutor advised her to become a lawyer.
Determined to provide holistic development of the
workers, Sudha got her law degree in 2000 from a
college affiliated to the Pandit Ravishankar Shukla
University in Raipur. After becoming a lawyer, she
started fighting the cases of her own trade union and also
fought the case of regularisation of contract workers. As
the cases moved up to the High Court, she also began to
practice there from 2007. That is when people from the
vulnerable communities at large, fighting for their rights,
started to approach her. Against this background, she
formed a legal organisation called Janhit to help
communities and groups not covered by the usual legal
aid system, such as a village community fighting land
acquisition or an Adivasi group struggling for forest
rights and environmental issues. Till date, she continues
her work in the state of Chhattisgarh, resisting the joint
forces of Police and the State to fight for the rights of the
locals. She made representations to the National Human
Rights Commission in the defence of many human rights
defenders. She was nominated by the court to be a
member of the Chhattisgarh State Legal Services
Authority. She is also a visiting professor at National
Law University, Delhi and the general secretary of the
Chhattisgarh People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).
Sudha Bharadwaj is the latest human rights defender to
be labeled as “Urban Naxal” who, as defined in an essay
in the right-wing magazine Swarajya in May 2017, are
“urban intellectuals, influencers or activists of
importance” and are “the invisible enemies of India”.
However, the label is being used to intimidate “anyone
who dissents, irrespective of their ideological
affiliations”. Any person or group of persons working for
the cause of tribals is officially marked as the enemy of
the State; any agitation to establish tribal rights is
reckoned as insurrectionary activity. People who have
been labeled “urban Naxals” are often charged under the
Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) which is
ambiguous enough to allow a wide array of dissidents to
be arrested; as Gautam Navlakha, a human rights activist
pointed out: “Bending the criminal justice system to suit
the needs of the establishment is a way to divert attention
from the real issues to an imagined threat.”
5
 STUDENT MOVEMENTS ACROSS INDIA AND BEYOND
STUDENTS, INTELLECTUALS AND WORKING
PEOPLE GATHER AT DELHI TO OPPOSE
STATE REPRESSION
Students along with intellectuals and working people
participated in a protest program against increasing
repression of state on people at Parliament Street in Delhi
on 3rd August. The program was organized by Campaign
Against State Repression and witnessed a gathering of
over four thousand people. The program was presided by
Professor G Haragopal. Justice BG Kolse Patil, D Raja,
Manorajan Mohanty, Arundhati Roy, Dharamvir Gandhi,
S Vanchinathan and others addressed the gathering. The
speakers spoke about and condemned the state massacre
at Thoothkudi, they condemned the arrests of activists in
relation with the Bhima Koregaon case. Immediate repeal
of repressive colonial acts like Goondas, UAPA, AFSPA
and others was demanded. Activists spoke about the
banning of trade unions like MSS in Jharkhand. It was
remarked that the struggle for the rights of Dalits,
Adivasis, Muslims and all marginalized communities
need to be fought unitedly. Writer Arundhati Roy spoke
of the breaking of two locks in the early 90s, the locks of
Babri Masjid and the end to the restraints on exploitative
global capital. She felt that we need to understand both
capitalism and casteism in order to understand the nature
of the state as both work hand in hand. She further said
that, the arrests of Prof. GN Saibaba, Rona Wilson and
Advocate Surendra Gadling reveals that anyone amongst
us could be arrested next by this exceedingly vindictive
state; a state that is ready to let the country burn in order
to retain control in the 2019 elections. The need for all
democratic forces across the country to fight against state
repression and fascism expanding all over the country
was reiterated.
TISS HYDERABAD STUDENTS PROTEST
AGAINST SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND LACK
OF INFRASTRUCTURE
TISS Hyderabad students went for a protest against the
authorities demanding proper action after three women
students were harassed near the hostels on 31st July. The
students observed that the primary issue with the
Hyderabad campus is the fact that there is no campus.
Because university currently functions from a rented
building, there are no institutional hostels. Hostels are
taken in lease from private contractors who in turn take
the residential buildings and apartments in rent for the
purpose. The students have demanded a permanent
solution to the problem. As reported by YKA, a Masters
student said “The number of sexual harassment incidents,
in and around our hostels, is just too many. Every day we
get to hear of at least three sexual harassment incidents.
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It’s extremely frustrating, and the students are scared for
their lives. The protests happened because of this
frustration. We are just asking for our basic right to
safety. It is exhausting that every time we have to go
somewhere, we have to constantly be on guard. The
institute has to take this issue seriously”.
MEDICAL STUDENTS OF PATIALA ALONG
WITH TEACHERS AND DOCTORS OPPOSE NMC
BILL
The medical students and teachers, resident doctors and
medical officers in Government Medical College and
Rajindra Hospital, Patiala observes a strong protest on
30th July against the National Medical Commission
(NMC) bill. Except for the emergency services, the
functioning of all other departments including outdoor
patients’ ward and operation theaters in the hospital were
suspended for more than two hours. More than 400
medical students abstained from their classes. The
protesting faculty and the doctors held a protest rally
outside the office of the college principal and raised
slogans against the Central government. The NMC bill
has received nationwide criticism from democratic and
progressive forces for facilitating profiteering in medical
education and increasing political centralization of the
statutory body which has the responsibility of
establishing uniform and high standards of medical
education in India.
STUDENT MOVEMENT FORCES PRESIDENCY
UNIVERSITY TO REVOKE NEW EXAM AND
PROMOTION RULES
After protests from the students, on 30th July, the
Presidency University authorities decided to revise its
new examination and promotion rules. According to the
new rules which the students opposed, the existing
students of the university needed 75 percent attendance
for promotion and failing to do so they would have to
take re-admission. Moreover, if any student failed to
clear two of their papers then they would have to follow
the same process. Around 300 university students would
have had to take re-admission as an effect.
JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION
BOWS DOWN TO STUDENTS’ PROTEST
After five days of hunger strike and weeks of relentless
protest against authorities and the state government, the
students of Jadavpur University were finally granted their
demands on July 11th when the university decided to go
back to the earlier system of giving 50-50 weightage to
Class 12 marks and entrance exams. Five of the 20
6
students who were on an indefinite hunger strike at the
university had to be admitted to the hospital after their
health condition fell to alarming levels.
JAMIA MILIA ISLAMIA STUDENTS DEMAND
THE B.E. COURSE TO BE A FULL-TIME ONE
Students of Jamia Milia Islamia (JMI) are protesting
since 23rd July to demand the Bachelor of Engineering
(BE) course to be declared as a full-time one. Hundreds
of students have been staging a sit-in and have blocked
the university's main gate. The BE course is yet to be
approved as a full-time course by the All India Council
of Technical Education (AICTE), and the varsity has
neither mentioned this fact in its prospectus nor did it
clarified the same at the time of admission. Currently, as
many as 1,400 students are pursuing the four-year course
and the university is set to enroll another batch of 350
students in the upcoming session. The students alleged
that because of this misinformation from the
administration's side their future is at stake. Many of
them have been declined for jobs, and many are not
getting admission for M.Tech as B.E. is officially a part-
time course. In the pressure of the students, the officials
of JMI had assured to go for talks with AICTE on the
issue.
THE 14-DAY LONG HUNGER STRIKE OF
CALCUTTA MEDICAL COLLEGE STUDENTS
FORCES AUTHORITIES TO ACCEPT DEMANDS
After a 14-day long hunger strike by the students of
Calcutta Medical College, the authorities had to accept
all their major demands on 23rd July. The administration
has accepted to provide proper accommodation according
to MCI rule to all the medical students. Also, the students
were assured that required renovation of the damaged
hostels will be carried out and appointment of wardens
will be done properly in near future, thus, accepting the
allegation of the students that rather than allocating
Professors of the institute as supervisor of the hostel, the
authority has been giving this responsibility to a part-
time leader of the ruling party Trinamul Congress and
alumnus of the institute.
STUDENTS AND WOMEN ORGANIZATIONS
SHUT DOWN MANIPUR IN SUPPORT OF THEIR
DEMANDS
A 24-hour general strike was called in Manipur on 13th
July by Socialist Students’ Union of Manipur (SSUM),
Proletarian Feminist Movement Manipur (PoFM) and
Socialist Women Association (SWA). The strike was
called in demand of proper settlement of the land dispute
between Manipur and Myanmar and to produce the draft
bill of ILPS (Inner Line Permit System) publicly before it
is passed in the assembly. The demands also included
publishing the details of postings and transfers of the
govt. teachers and justice to weightlifter Khumukcham
Sanjita for her doping test. As an effect of the bandh,
public buses and cars stayed off the roads, shops and
SPARK- Special Issue on completion of one year of Spark, Issue no. 12, July 2018
marketplaces remained closed and agitators blocked
roads at different places in support of the demands.
Major marketplaces wore a deserted look. Womenfolk of
Singjamei area came out on the road and blocked the
road in support of the strike. Attendance of staffs in
government offices was very low and all the banks
remained closed. A day before the strike, large folks of
Meira Paibis (women's social movement in Manipur)
took out torch rallies at various places in support of the
demands.
PANJAB UNIVERSITY STUDENTS PROTEST
AGAINST CHOICE BASED CREDIT SYSTEM
(CBCS)
On 13th July, Panjab University students under the
banner of Students For Society staged a sit-in protest in
front of VC-office demanding reduction of credit limit
from 80% to 50% and revocation of CBCS. The CBCS
has already been opposed by the academic community
including students and teachers across different
universities. The CBCS system by definition and design
is a choice-based system. It has been stated that this
system is mainly to provide an opportunity for students to
have a choice of courses or subjects within a program.
On the “menu”, there will be various discipline-centered,
general and skill-based electives. However, the lack of
classrooms, faculty and other issues have made
implementation of this system a mess. Moreover, CBCS
centralizes the syllabus of the courses to a large extent
and reduces the faculties to school teachers, teaching
State-prescribed textbooks, thus, hampering the
autonomy of the varsities. The local issues in each
subject are being ignored when there is a uniform course
being followed throughout the country.
TEENAGERS PARALYZE PARTS OF DHAKA IN
DEMAND FOR ROAD SAFETY
Thousands of students paralyzed parts of Bangladesh’s
capital on Sunday to protest the country’s abysmal road
safety conditions. Teenagers dressed in school uniforms
erected checkpoints across the city, forcing the police and
government ministers to observe traffic laws that are
otherwise poorly enforced. The protests in Dhaka, the
capital, have entered their second week with no signs of
abating, with demonstrators demanding justice after two
students were killed and 12 others wounded when a bus
plowed into a bus stop on July 29. Later, there were
violent clashes as authorities fired tear gas at students and
shut down mobile Internet connections. There are
allegations that government-hired goons are attacking
school students, abducting and raping women. Multiple
protesters have been reported to be killed. A number of
journalists were also beaten and had their cameras taken
away, reportedly by ruling Awami League party
members. Shahidul Alam, a renowned photographer and
social activist told Al Jazeera from Dhaka that the
protests were driven by "larger" factors than road safety
alone. He alleged that the police specifically asked for
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help from armed goons to combat unarmed students
demanding safe roads. The government's miscalculations
are quite brazen, their idea that fear and repression would
be enough to tame the entire nation has proven to be
wrong. Following the interview with Al Jazeera, Alam
was detained by police in Dhaka, local media reported.
STUDENTS OF GKCIET INTENSIFY PROTEST
The students of Ghani Khan Choudhury Institute of
Engineering & Technology (GKCIET), Malda have again
intensified their protest from 25th July by means of a sit-
in demonstration in front of the academic block of the
institute. This is the second phase of protest with the first
round of protest lasting for 26 days (from 8th May to 2nd
June 2018) with demands of: 1) Admission in B Tech
course through lateral entry in the 2018-2019 academic
session, 2) Valid Certificates and Mark-sheets as per
WBSCT &VE&SD for a 3-year equivalent as issued in
In Solidarity with the Students of IISER Kolkata!
Unite and Demand Hike in Research Fellowship!
After the last hike in research fellowship in October
2014 as a result of an intense nationwide protest of
the research scholars belonging to different
institutions, the Ministry of Human Resource
Development (MHRD) promised to consider
fellowship hike periodically in every 3 - 4 years.
Since then, four years have already passed, however,
the promise of MHRD has not been kept. Thus,
demanding a 60% hike in fellowship and 10%
annual hike further, recently, the research scholars
of IISER-K organized a silent protest, in which they
pointed out several important issues. These issues
are:
 The minimum wage of unskilled persons has
been raised up to 42% but there is no
fellowship hike for a person doing Ph.D.
 While 7th CPC is in place, the House Rent
Allowance (HRA) of the Ph.D. students is
decreased by 6% (30% to 24%, from Rs.
7500 it became Rs. 6000).
 Ph.D. students do not receive any Dearness
Allowance (DA) and annual hike like others.
 After 6th CPC, there was an enhancement in
Ph.D. fellowship in 2006 and 2010.
However, after 7th CPC there was no such
hike.
SPARK- Special Issue on completion of one year of Spark, Issue no. 12, July 2018
other government polytechnics, and 3) Equivalent of
Certificate Course in ITI or 10+2(science). In the first
phase of protests, students have carried out a hunger
strike for 16days and with no valid response from the
institute, district, state and central administrative officials
have resorted to rallies and roadblocks in Malda city. The
first round of strike ended after the ADM(LR) of Malda
and IC of Malda police promised that their demands will
be met. However, after almost 2 months the
administration has failed to act on their promises. While
the authorities have tried every possible way to
intimidate the protesters, the students are firm in their
resolve to defeat the insensitive central and state
administrations those are otherwise indifferent to the
future and lives of 800 young students who have
dedicated 4 to 6 years of their lives to study for their
degrees. The student movement of GKCIET Malda has
taken the streets of Kolkata since 8th August, 2018.
After the last hike in October 2014, the government
did not take much time to announce several anti-
student policies, one after another. The severe-most
onslaught over the students came as an enormous
fee-hike for all students starting from UG to PG
across nearly all higher educational institutions in
India. Concurrently, announcing fee waiver for
SC/ST students, the government tactfully attempted
to create a polarization between general and SC/ST
candidates in a time when the students of the whole
nation were protesting unitedly against the
institutional murder of Rohit Vemula at Hyderabad
Central University, in January 2016. Next came the
draft of National Educational Policy (NEP) 2016,
which clearly showed that the Modi-government, at
one hand, is trying its best to implement the
recommendations of General Agreement on Trade in
Services (GATS) to speed up the privatization of
Indian educational institutions, and on the other
hand, is set to propagate Hindutva ideology in
educational curriculum. As a part of the broader
agenda, the government has already started
withdrawing its financial support from higher
educational institutions. Thus, deliberately pushing
every institute to generate revenue by increasing
fees and compelling them to take loans from newly
introduced Higher Education Funding Agency
(HEFA), which is nothing but a shameless back-
8
door infusion of private capital into public
institutions. Not only IITs and NITs, even central
and state universities like Punjab University (PU),
Madras University, Tata Institute of Social Science
(TISS) etc. faced such huge hikes in tuition fees.
When students of PU protested against this, they
were attacked brutally by the police, and even 66
students were arrested on sedition charges. The
TISS administration withdrew the scheme of Post-
Matric Scholarship (PMS), which undoubtedly
benefited the students in the past, especially the
students from marginalized communities.
During the last few years, inflation is going through
a steep rise. We have witnessed price-rise of all
necessary commodities by 50-100%. In a
circumstance like this, it is not only difficult to
provide quality research but also day-by-day it is
becoming difficult for the research scholars and
other PG students to sustain in the system. However,
the government is totally silent regarding the
promise of periodic fellowship hike. Rather, it is
acting worse and has started dividing the research
scholar community by upholding an elitist agenda.
The government has decided to pick up about 2000
‘eligible’ research scholars from the IITs and IISc
and increase their fellowship to Rs. 70000. This is
an attempt to disassociate the struggling research
scholars of IITs and IISc from the nation-wide
struggle of fellowship hike.
In several reputed institutions, hundreds of research
scholars are working without any pay. Due to the
callous implementation of Direct Benefit Transfer
(DBT)-based fellowship disbursal to Aadhaar-linked
bank accounts, the young research scholars in many
campuses are either not getting fellowships for
several months, or facing delays in receiving
fellowships. Therefore, the demand for fellowship
hike by the research scholars of IISER-K is just and
timely. As responsible citizens, researchers and
students of science, it not only our responsibility to
stand in solidarity with the scholars of IISER-K but
also to unite and initiate similar movements for
scholarship hikes in individual campuses. And thus,
do our part in saving research from getting more and
more commodified and become farther from the
reach of the students of middle and lower socio-
economic sections of our society.

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